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It’s been over a month since our “big yellow umbilical chord” has been out of it’s locker and used to attach us to shore power. Instead, we now rely on our new solar panels to keep our house batteries topped up. The difference it’s made to our cruising life has been substantial: no more searching for a working power socket when we arrive in a harbour, and no more running the engine (or generator) in order to enjoy a cool beer on a sunny afternoon.

Quite apart from the convenience of it, we’re now saving money by not paying to plug in to shore power, or for diesel to run the generator.

This is how our panels look on a particularly good day at anchor:

Although there’s nothing new about using solar power on a boat, the use of flexible panels on a bimini seems to be less well documented, so I thought I’d write about the choices we made and the approach we took in case it is of use to others.

Assessing our power requirements

Typically, the advice for estimating your power requirements involves creating a spreadsheet which lists all devices on board, their power consumption, and the time they are used for in a 24hr period. From this you can determine a theoretical number of watts (or amp hours) that you will need to generate to meet their needs.

To me, this advice sounds flawed. Can you reliably tell me how many minutes your 7 amp fridge runs in a 24hr period for example? Does your autopilot consume the same power when sailing in rough rather than calm seas? Clearly not.

Instead of adopting the suggested approach, I simply spoke with owners of similar boats which already had solar panels and determined how satisfied they were with them. The general line was “more is better”, but once over 200W most of the people I spoke with felt that they wouldn’t want to be without it. Given these numbers, we measured the space available and decided to use as much of it as possible. This resulted in us buying 4 x 100W panels (400W in total).

Siting the panels

We don’t have an arch at the back of our boat, and didn’t want to incur the cost (both financially and aesthetically) of having one built and fitted. As we always sail with our bimini up, a bimini mounted solution seemed like a more sensible option for us. A downside of mounting the panels on the bimini rather than an arch would be the increased shading from the ship’s rigging.

Mitigating power loss from shading

Solar panels don’t like shade. Shading a single cell can cause the current running through the whole panel (and hence that panel’s power output) to drop significantly. Furthermore, this current ‘bottleneck’ will limit the current running through any other panels connected in series, affecting the output of the entire array.

To avoid the losses described above, the panels can be wired in parallel. The downside of this approach is that the current increases as more panels are added resulting in power lost as heat, and subsequently more bulky cables are required.

There are many resources on the net explaining the advantages between wiring panels in series or parallel, and to save regurgitating it all, I’ve summarised the key pros and cons:

Series, output current remains low and voltage increases as more panels are added:

CON: Shading a single panel reduces power produced by all panels.

PRO: As current remains low, smaller cable diameters can be used.

PRO: Modern MPPT controllers can convert the high voltage back to a usable charge voltage and current.

Parallel, voltage remains the same, but current increases as more panels are added:

PRO: Shading a single panel will not affect the output of other panels in the array.

CON: As currents are high, thicker cables are required to carry same power.

Rather than opting for either of the above schemes when wiring our panels, I came up with a hybrid design that aimed to strike a balance between the efficiency of a series installation, without incurring big losses when the panels would invariably suffer from shading.

My reasoning was that any significant shade from the boom or the mast would fall on either the port or starboard side of the boat, but not both sides at the same time, and in such cases it was important to retain the maximum available output from the unshaded panels.

In the diagram you can see that the port and starboard side pairs of panels are wired in series, and that these each have their own MPPT charge regulator. The regulators (aka controllers) are wired separately (i.e. in parallel) to the house batteries. Note: if you are planing a similar installation, that you must find controllers that can work together in parallel.

This design seems to work well and I’m pleased with the results. When one side of the boat is in shade, the opposite side generates the bulk of the power. Then, as the sun moves, and the shadows go from one side to the other, the previously shaded array becomes more active.

Attaching the panels to the bimini

We used the services of Massimo, the local ‘canvas guy’, to attach the panels to the bimini and he did a first class job. The long sides of the panels are zipped and Velcro’d in place and the short sides are attached with Velcro only. The highest wind we’ve been in so far was just over 30kts and these fixings worked perfectly.

He also stitched cable bags between the panels that we can coil the cables into to keep things tidy.

You can see from the above shot that the boom is fairly close to the bimini. This means that it’s shadow is only cast over the panels when the sun is fairly low. For most of the day, we charge well from both the port and starboard arrays.

What did it cost?

Our choice of equipment has been influenced by us not wanting to install an arch. Flexible panels are more expensive than rigid ones but the gap is closing. If money’s no object and you elect to purchase a well marketed flexible ‘marine’ panel (like Solbian for example) then be prepared to shell out about £700 for a 100W panel. I sourced our panels from a reputable UK dealer for a little over £200 each. The controllers were about £150 each. With shipping to Italy from the UK, the total cost of materials was around £1200. The canvas guy charged us about €400 for the modifications to the bimini.

Finally

If you have any questions or relevant experiences then please get in touch in the comments section below.

Ibiza is the only island we’ve ever visited that has its own soundtrack. A mile or more out and it’s still possible to hear dance music beats eminating from the shore. Thankfully (for us at least) the club scene spots are very isolated from the rest of the island which remains wonderfully tranquil.

In summary, we’ve not done a lot over the past couple of weeks. We’ve not had any long journeys to complete, or tricky customs officers to deal with, or excursions inland. It’s been a fortnight of superb day sailing between some of the nicest anchorages we’ve ever visited.

Cala Raco d’es Mares (1) was a good option for us to make landfall after our crossing as it would provide us with shelter from the westerlies that had given us a great overnight downwind sail. It was a large open bay, and fairly featureless apart from a small beach in the corner. As it turned out though, the shelter was excellent and we caught up with the sleep we’d missed the night before.

The next day we sailed up the coast and through the buoyed channel at the north of Formantera before crossing to the south coast of Ibiza.

Here we spent our first few lazy days in the anchorages of Yondal (2) and Cala Port da Roig (3). These were both lovely small bays surrounded by low cliffs into which were cut fisherman’s huts; ramshackle doors in the cliffs behind which they would haul up and keep their traditional fishing boats. It also gave me a chance to set up our hammock for the first time in ages:

From here we headed round to Cala Vadella (4), a small Spanish resort where we picked up a free mooring buoy and spent a couple of days swimming from the back of the boat, keeping a close eye out for the jellyfish that also seemed to enjoy swimming there – yes we both got stung and it really hurt. Apart from the jellyfish, we really loved it there. To get ashore we rowed a few meters in the dinghy, clambered over the fisherman’s huts (left on the photo) and across the beach (via the bars) to the restaurants and shops. The waters were crystal clear and filled with fish that would devour the leftovers from our plates in the evening.

We’d read about a small and very remote anchorage, Cala Portixol (5), that could be used in fair weather. We decided we would take a look and, if the conditions were ok, then we’d spend a night there.

When we arrived the sea was very settled and the place was deserted apart from a few people that had made a cross country walk to use the beach. There was just enough room for us, so we reversed in carefully dropping our anchor as we went and then taking a line ashore to a large rock to prevent us from swinging. For additional peace of mind I assembled our Fortress anchor and rowed that out in the dingy to give us extra holding from the bow.

The Spanish are very relaxed about nudity, and we’ve got quite used to seeing people perfecting their all-over tans (it’s not as glamorous as you might first imagine). As used to this as we’d become, it still came a something of a surprise when I looked round in this solitary spot to see a couple of naked men sitting on the rock we’d tied our line to, quietly watching us getting settled in. I guess they’d taken a break from the beach to swim over and see what we were doing. After they got bored watching (and after having a little cuddle with one another) they made their way back to the beach and we were alone again.

That night the moon was out and the phosphorescent creatures in the sea twinkled around the boat giving us our own little light show before we went to bed. It was magical.

The next morning, after breakfast, we made a short trip around the next headland and dropped our anchor in the bay of San Miguel (6). Tucked inside the bay there were beaches in either direction and we climbed through the pine trees in the hills to get a better view.

You may recall that we made a sun awning a few weeks ago. You can see it here in action – its the most valuable piece of kit we have on board at the moment as the midday sun is punishingly hot.

We were enjoying a peaceful afternoon in San Miguel until a big motor yacht decided to drop anchor among the sailing yachts. Motor boats and sailing yachts react very differently to wind shifts and before long he was using his £25K Williams Jet Tender as a fender when he swung into our neighbour. Boating is a great spectator sport!

Cala Portinatx (7) was a small town where we spent a couple of days with lots of good restaurants. The paella here was second to none:

And the sunsets were quite special too – here’s our view from the paella restaurant:

Cala Llonga (8) seemed to have the highest concentration of male nudes which may have been fun for Helena but didn’t hold much interest for me. So after a night there and a quick game of name-the-nudie (my favourite name was Mr Brownsack), we moved on again to Cala Sahona (9) which was stunningly beautiful with its white sand bottom bay and bright turquoise waters but, as it was the weekend and close to Ibiza town, it was also very busy so we didn’t stick around for long.

Our last stop in Ibiza was back on Formentera, close to where we’d started. More specifically, in an anchorage on Espalmador (10) which is famous for its sulphur mud baths.

After nearly boiling my foot testing the temperature of the dark mud that had been warming in the sun all day, I got stuck in and found it was a very effective sun block.

The next morning we got up early to catch the sunrise and we set our course for Mallorca.

If you’d like to see more photos and videos from our trip, and keep up to date with our whereabouts, then take a look at our Facebook page.

We sat out a storm at the anchorage in El Jebah in Morocco before making an overnight passage back to the Spanish mainland. I slept soundly while Helena sailed us in complete darkness through the traffic heading for the Gibraltar straits; by the time I came on watch all the excitement was over and I had a very quiet shift:

From our landing port at Marina del Este we moved on to Almerimar, a popular marina with British ex-pats and apparently the home of the good old English Breakfast. The smell of English style bacon being fried was too much for me and I gladly found myself gorging on bacon sandwiches at lunch times. I don’t feel too guilty though as I managed to fit in a few quiet morning’s yoga sessions on the aft deck. It’s just the right size to fit a mat on; Hallberg Rassy really do think of everything.

Almerimar is conveniently close to Granada, so we rented a car for the day and drove to visit the Alhambra, a stunning historic site with a Moorish palace, gardens and a fortress. This was something that had been on my must-do list before leaving England and it was a fantastic day out. The architecture was incredible.

Almerimar was an easy place to kill time, and we could see why the ex-pats liked it so much. The marina is fringed by dozens of good tapas restaurants and there were chandlers and laundry facilities right on the dockside too.

We ended up spending ten days here waiting for the wind to change direction and, aside from the trip to Granada, we met up with some friends from the Cruising Association and spent time making a sun awning.

Helena taught me how to use her new sewing machine and between us we started to cut and stitch the fabric we’d bought out with us into something that would protect us from the heat of the midday sun.

Disaster averted!

Taking long strides along the Costa del Sol, our next port was another overnight trip to Cartagena. On this leg, we had a serious problem with our battery bank while miles offshore. We first noticed a horrible smell at around 1:00 am, and tracked it down to the battery box. One of the big lead-acid batteries had started to cook itself. It was hot enough to fry an egg on and there was steam spouting from the screw tops. We immediately vented the cabin (the hydrogen/oxygen mix is very explosive and toxic) and disconnected the battery terminals to prevent any further current being delivered to it. It was still steaming two hours later but had cooled down and was clearly less volatile.

Earlier that night we’d listened to a mayday call from a French couple that had had an explosion on board. They were subsequently rescued from their liferaft by another yacht after a rescue plane spotted their boat in flames. We were thankful that we had dealt with our problem in good time.

Once in Cartagena, we ordered a complete new battery bank and had a local engineer install it and check over our charging systems for us. I apologise for what is probably the dullest photo on our entire blog, but it’s such a relief to have a properly functioning electrical system again; to get a sense of perspective for the size of the batteries, this is all contained under a single berth:

Our final passage to the Balearics was the longest one of all at over 150 miles. We set off from Cartagena at around noon with high seas and a strong following wind.

We crossed the Greenwich meridian (with a little ceremony to thank Neptune for a safe passage) at 20:30, and finally arrived and dropped our anchor in Formentera the following afternoon at 13:30 hrs. Then we slept… and slept… and slept.

It’s nice to be sailing short trips again and we’ve already managed to find some great anchorages. I expect our next post will be all about our discoveries around the islands, but for now here’s a taste of what we’ve found so far:

And this is the view from our anchorage this evening where I’m sat sipping a whisky and writing this blog:

After reaching Gibraltar, we decided that rather than following the Spanish coast into the Med, as initially planned, we’d cross over to Africa and take a look around. This blog tells of the very different places and experiences we’ve had there in the last week.

Ceuta – Spain

On the north coast of Africa and only a sixteen mile trip from Gibraltar, Ceuta is one of two Spanish enclaves in northern Morocco. Dispensing with the political similarities between Ceuta and Gibraltar, we were curious to see what it was like so under light winds we set off from Gibraltar and crossed the straits using our new Parasailor sail for the first time since its commissioning.

Amalia is a big old girl, and generally requires a little over 10 knots to get going properly; on the day we had around 10 knots of wind and, rather then dragging her heels, she raced us across the straits; we were rarely under 6 knots the whole way:

From a distance we spotted pilot whales and after a few hours arrived at our first ever African port.

Acting as Spain’s gateway to Africa, Ceuta is a bustling commercial town with some great colonial architecture. We spent a couple of days exploring the city and the highlight for us was the historic fortifications which, along with the rest of the seafront buildings, were at their most impressive when illuminated at night:

In much the same way that Gibraltar is very British with some Spanish influences, Ceuta is very Spanish with some distinctly Moroccan flavours thrown in. There can’t be many places in the world where bikinis and burkas coexist so comfortably for example.

The market near the harbour had an amazing selection of fresh foods and fish. We ended up trying a dorado (fish) sausage that tasted so good we bought two – they’re still untouched in the galley as we’re not too sure what to eat them with. Any suggestions in the comments section below please!

Smir – Morocco

From Cueta we headed south and east into Morocco’s first port of entry. This is our first time arriving in a non-European port and we weren’t too sure what to expect in terms of Moroccan paperwork. As it turned out the paperwork took a while to complete but it was all done under the shade of a big tree with good humour and a friendly smile as they worked to fix their printer using a syringe to inject fresh ink in to a depleted ink cartridge.

Smir houses a large marina built as part of a holiday resort, and along with the local camel we soon became something of an attraction, having to keep the gate closed on the guard rail to prevent people climbing on board to take photos.

The people here were incredibly friendly and helpful. One afternoon we decided to walk to town to get some supplies from the market. Someone at the marina told us it was just a couple of miles away, but they clearly didn’t understand what a mile was as an hour later we were still walking along the main road. We asked a group of men for directions, and they told us we should get a taxi the rest of the way. One of them tried to help us hail a taxi and, after a few minutes with no luck, his brother drove past in the local school bus. Helena had never been in a school bus before and was clearly both grateful and delighted when we accepted the offer of a free ride to town.

The thing that makes it truly unique though is that nearly every building (and a lot of the streets and pavements) are painted bright blue.

In Judaism, blue represents the sky and the heavens so when Hitler’s growing power drove Jews from their homes in the 1930s, many refugees returned to safety in Chefchaouen and painted the town the vivid shade of blue it is known for today. Now most of the Jewish families have left, but the local government sponsors the painting each spring to keep the history alive.

North east Morocco is an area known for producing vast quantities of hashish. An alternative theory for the painting is that the stoners all had a little too much to smoke one day and decided to paint the town blue.

Either way, there’s no denying that you sometimes get an overwhelming sense that you’re swimming when you turn a corner and find yourself immersed in blue – a very odd sensation.

El Jabah – Morocco

From the pilot guide, the next place to visit was a day’s sail along the coast to a small fishing town. Reportedly one of the most friendly places to go and see, it comprises of a small fishing harbour and a nearby bay suitable for anchoring.

We suspect that since the pilot guide was written, that something untoward has happened here as we were not welcomed with open arms but rather yelled at by a couple of fishermen and someone in an official uniform to get out of the harbour the moment we arrived. They instructed us to go to the next port along the coast – some 7 hours away. Rather than doing this and arriving in the dark at an unknown port, we decided to drop the anchor in the bay just around the corner and settle ourselves there instead.

It’s hard to get a sense from the sketches in the pilot book of the size of the bay and whether there are any dangers to be aware of when entering it. From what we could tell, there was good depth (over 7 meters) wherever we went and no dangerous rocks were apparent. We used a trip line when anchoring, but it lifted without no problems and was covered in lovely gooey mud.

A force 7 wind was forecast for the night so we decided to stay put an extra day. The bay offered good shelter from the fierce winds that night and we slept comfortably.

The only problem we had was when a fisherman arrived to retrieve nets that he’d laid without marker buoys across the bay. As we’d had no idea it was there, we’d laid our anchor chain right over it and it took us quite a while to untangle everything.

The fisherman was a nice guy but he was visibly worried about the police who had started blowing whistles at us from their lookout station (you can just make out the white building on the clifftop).

The police never contacted us directly, but we suspect that there have been problems with drug smuggling here recently that may have involved visiting yachts. Did I forget to mention that the Tuesday market in El Jabah is a hashish market?

As ever, If you’d like to see more photos and movies from our journey, then take a look at our Facebook page.

We left Portimao, and some very lovely neighbours, last Wednesday, the 13th May. We headed for the anchorage at Culatra, near Faro, and spent a lazy day there exploring the small fishing town of Armona. The pace of life here seems a million miles away from working in London, there are no cars, sandy streets, and it was fun to watch the fisherman bickering over one too many beers in the afternoon sun.

We were treated to another colourful sunset there that night:

The next morning we were up early and headed out just as the sun was rising and headed for the river Guardiana, that separates Portugal from Spain.

We’d been looking forward to exploring the river, but when we got there the wind was up and with it the waves. Given that we have a 2 meter draft and that there’s a sandbank running across the river entrance with a clearance of just 2 meters in places, we thought it a little too dangerous to enter given the state of the sea.

Instead we pushed on another 15 or so miles and headed to Mazagon, switching our courtesy flag to reflect our change from Portuguese to Spanish waters:

Mazagon turned out to be an economical (just €20) but fairly bland marina to spend the night, so in the morning we headed out to sea again and on towards Rota.

Rota

Rota was a real highlight for us. We loved exploring the winding streets of the old town. They offered shade from the sunshine, good places to eat and something of interest around every corner.

To cope with the heat, the buildings have a heavy wooden outer door that leads to a shaded courtyard or entrance lobby. I found them beautiful and fascinating and couldn’t help but poke my camera lens into a few of them:

Our dilemma in Rota was whether to stay or move on. In order to get into the Med, we would need to pass the straits of Gibraltar. This meant waiting for a suitable weather window that would allow us to pass one of the worlds windiest places at the southern most tip of Europe: Tarifa. The Wind in Tarifa is said to blow over 30 knots for 300 days of the year. It is impossible to take a sail boat through this pinch-point into the Med unless the wind is with you, or you pick one of the remaining 65 days of the year when the wind isn’t so strong.

All the forecasts we read indicated that there was only one day in the next week that would allow us to enter the Mediterranean; in two days time. If we didn’t get to Tarifa for this day, then we’d have to wait for at least a week before we could leave. As lovely as Rota was, and as close as it is to Cadiz (another place we wanted to see), we decided to push on again and head for Barbate, and then on to Gibraltar.

Gibraltar doesn’t have much to offer in the way of beautiful architecture, or atmosphere. However, on the plus side, there’s a Morrisons here and a litre of diesel costs just 44 pence. So we’ve filled our galley with all the foods we miss from home, and our diesel tanks are now filled to the brim too.

I’ve finally got our Internet access working the way I’ve always wanted. Now, whenever we arrive at a new destination, we can flip a single switch on our main panel, sniff out a nearby WiFi network and get online.

In a marina finding a WiFi network to connect to is straight-forward. When at anchor, it means searching for a decent WiFi signal from a coffee shop followed by a trip to buy an espresso or two, and leaving with their network password in our pocket.

Unlike much simpler solutions which can be plugged directly into a PC’s USB port, we have a large, permanently mounted high gain antenna which is capable of connecting to networks miles away. Once connected, our ship’s WiFi router allows all our devices (laptops, phones, iPads) to share the same Internet connection without having to re-enter user names and passwords.

Today, our neighbours have been complaining about the poor quality of the WiFi provided at the marina, yet we’ve had a reliable connection all day and have even been able to stream video.

This setup is the result of a couple of years of trial-and-error using a variety of hardware, made all the more difficult as everything has had to be restricted to 12 volts.

In this article I’ll give a brief overview of how it all works. I hope it proves useful to others who’d like to set up a similar installation in their boat or camper van.

A list of parts:

A similar all-in-one ‘Pro’ solution from a commercial marine vendor can be expensive, but if you buy the parts individually and are willing to spend a little time setting it up, then you’ll be left with change from £200:

The Bullet is the key component in the system. It attaches directly to the high gain antenna and contains all the jiggery-pokery-magic that sniffs out WiFi networks for you. I bought the Titanium model (actually made from aluminium) as it looks much more robust and weather proof than its only slightly cheaper plastic counterpart. I chose an 8dBi antenna, as higher gain means a narrower beam angle that might miss a WiFi base station. It works well, and given clear line of sight has a more than adequate working range of over 5 miles. I found the guys at broadband buyer really helpful when I phoned for advice on this, and they helped to select a model that was more suitable for marine use, and very reasonably priced too.

You’ll need a short patch cable too. I decided to make my own and bought some RJ45 connectors and a crimping tool from eBay (it’s possible to learn how to do just about anything on YouTube). This also meant that I could terminate cables where I wanted to rather than having untidy coils of cable hidden behind panels around the boat. The cable tester proved invaluable as the first few leads I made had faults in them.

The trickiest item to find was a decent antenna bracket; they were either ugly, poor quality or laughably expensive. In the end, I had one fabricated from stainless steel specifically for the job – it looks great and only cost €20.00.

Putting it all together:

I’d spoken with a few vendors of all-in-one WiFi solutions at the London boat show, and the general opinion was that the ‘sweet spot’ for a WiFi antenna is about 3m above the water line. We already have an Navtex antenna mounted on the pushpit, so I just added the WiFi antenna to the same pole and ran the CAT5 cable from there inside the boat.

In the closeup image, you can see the bracket I had made, and the nice weather proof fixings on the Bullet Titanium model. The only cable that runs to the Bullet is the CAT5 ethernet cable; the POE injector sends it power up a pair of otherwise unused wires in this cable.

At the other end of the CAT5 cable, the remaining components are attached to a plywood board:

Power from the switch panel (1) is supplied to the POE injector (2) and the USB power adaptor (3), which in turn powers the TP-Link WiFi router (6).

The CAT5 cable from the Bullet plugs into the POE socket of the injector (4) and 12 volts is sent to power it up. The network signal from the bullet is sent back down using different wires in the same CAT5 cable and relayed via the patch cable (5) to the TP-Link WiFi router (6).

The TP-Link WiFi router creates our ship’s WiFi network (to which we connect all our devices with a single password) and it forwards all requests for web pages to the Bullet.

The plywood board is backed with heavy duty Velcro which holds it snugly at the back of a cabinet by the chart table. The blue monkey-fist knot allows the board to be easily pulled out for maintenance.

Network configuration:

Wiring the components together is relatively simple. Configuring the networking can be quite tricky and I suggest that you get this all working on a bench before even thinking about installation. If you have some experience configuring networks, then you’ll be fine – if not, it might be worth buying a friend who has experience a couple of beers.

As far as I’m concerned, the trick to configuring everything is to be methodical and take small steps. Start with the Bullet and no WiFi router. To do this replace the patch cable shown above with a cable connecting the LAN side of the POE injector directly to your laptop or PC. Then follow the configuration instructions in the Bullet’s user guide. Set it’s network mode to ‘Router’ and enter the I.P. settings you want it to use.

Once you’re in a position where you can connect to a remote WiFi network using the Bullet, it’s time to start thinking about setting up your own local WiFi network for your devices to connect to. Again, do this with the Bullet turned off so that you can focus on the WiFi router. Importantly, you should make sure that the WiFi router will use a different subnet address from the Bullet. So, for example, if the Bullet is configured to use 192.168.1.X, then the WiFi router must be configured to use something like 192.168.2.X. Once this is working as you’d like, use the patch cable to connect the Bullet to the WiFi router and you’re done.

You should now be able to connect to the Bullet’s configuration pages via your local WiFi network and search for remote WiFi networks:

Sort the networks by signal to noise ratio. Counterintuitively the best signal will be the one with the lowest value; in this case, the Vodafone network shown at the top of the list. Select this network and click the button to make the Bullet connect to it.

You should now be able to connect any number of devices on board to your local WiFi network, and they will all have internet access.

We’ve spent most of our first week back on Amalia socialising with friends and family. We met up with Martin, Olga, Ricardo and Sofia, who are in Portimao visiting Olga’s parents, and sailed with them to Alvor for lunch. Alvor is a lovely anchorage if you’re careful to mind the sandbanks, and a favourite spot for kite-surfers along this coast:

Helena’s brother drove down from Coimbra with their parents, and we ate out at a great little restaurant we found in Ferragudo when we were last out here at Easter.

The Portuguese certainly know how to cook meat, and I could barely walk straight when we left.

We also had a visit from the UK Parasailor agent on Thursday, to commission our new sail. So far we’re very impressed with it and how easy it was to use. We’re looking forward to trying it out in a slightly stronger breeze, but even in 5kts of wind, we managed to get the boat moving at over 3kts – not bad at all for a heavy boat like ours. Here’s a photo taken by Martin as we sailed back into Portimao harbour:

I’ve finally got the WiFi setup on the boat working as I’d like, which must be a relief for Helena as I’ve had the boat apart running power cables around:

There’s been a fair amount of trial and error involved in getting this to work properly, so I’ll write a more technical blog later this week explaining how it all ties together as I’m sure it’ll be useful for anyone trying to set up a 12v WiFi network in a boat or camper van.

Apart from our friendly neighbours, there’s nothing left in Portimao for us now so it’s time to start moving again. As ever, If you’d like to see more photos and movies from our journey, then take a look at our Facebook page.

This year we’ve carried out some significant maintenance works on Amalia while she was on the hard. The engine has had a through overhaul with crankshaft seals replaced, and a sea-water pump rebuild.

There was some play in the prop shaft at the end of last season, so we’ve had that stripped out and the cutlass bearing replaced. While they were at it, Bluewater Algarve also dropped the rudder and have replaced the bearings in that too. The whole transmission system is now rock solid and felt great as we motored from the yard to the marina.

More visibly, Bluewater Algarve have anti-fouled the undersides and have polished the hull for us too. The results are excellent:

In true Portuguese fashion, our 11am slot with the crane overran. The problem with this is that the wind in the Algarve generally picks up later in the day. When we finally relaunched, there was a strong crosswind and we needed help of a couple of burly yard-hands on the end of some strategically placed ropes to keep us from getting blown around.

Once afloat, the travel-lift operator managed to skilfully catch the bottom of our keel with one of the slings and drew us as far forward as possible before finally releasing us.

We opted to clean the topsides ourselves and were faced with some pretty nasty boatyard grime. No amount of scrubbing would have got this off, so we used a light cutting compound:

And after a lot of polishing, Amalia is looking more like her old self again:

In addition to all the scrubbing, we’ve had time to get the running rigging and sails back on, we’ve checked all electrical systems, updated the charts, inspected the anchor and chain, and I’ve been working on installing a permanent WiFi booster (more on this in a later blog).

We fly back home later this week and will return at the start of May to start our summer cruise towards the Mediterranean. We can’t wait!

If you’d like to keep up to date with how we’re getting on, then take a look at our Facebook page.

We’re now sitting (with a decent internet connection) in the marina at Sines, the southern most port on the Portuguese west coast. So it’s time to catch up with the blog and to report on the interesting places we’ve visited in the past couple of weeks.

The journey south along this stretch of coastline has been quite different to the sailing we’re used to. The distances between ports has generally been quite far, and the scenery all very samey with lots of flat featureless coastline with long sandy beaches dotted along it. On the plus side though, the tides are small, and currents negligible – meaning that we can set off at any time without being too concerned about being caught out by foul tides and currents.

We’ve seen all sorts of conditions, from flat calm seas with little wind, to very high ocean swells being swept in from the Atlantic by blasting winds. There have also been many days when we’ve been caught up in thick summer fog banks. Regardless of this, we have discoverd many fantastic places along the way:

Viana do Castello

This was the first port of call when we arrived in Portugal and it exceeded our expectations by a mile.

We moored stern to with a lazy line in the marina (a practice usually reserved for Mediterranean harbours) and took a short walk ashore to explore the beautiful old city.

Porto (Leixoes)

Both Helena and I have visited Porto before, so we decided to stop in Leixoes (just a few kilometers north) instead and see what it had to offer.

The pilot book didn’t have great things to say about Leixoes, but we were pleasantly surprised. It was the most reasonably priced marina we found in Portugal and adjacent to a small street with some excellent restaurants – again, very reasonably priced; a delicious dinner for two came to less than €20, this included a €8 bottle of very agreeable alvarinho wine.

Just outside the harbour wall, there is a beach where it is possible to kitesurf a nice left hand break when the afternoon winds pick up:

It was here that I unpacked my kites for the first time, eager to get out there, only to discover that my bar and lines are not on in the bag. Very frustrating, but I settled for a cold beer at the beach cafe instead.

Figueira da Foz

This is the closest harbour to Coimbra, where Helena’s family are based. We stopped here for a week to spend some time with them and were spoiled rotten with big meals and great hospitality. In spite of her mobility problems, we even managed to get Helena’s parents on to the boat.

Being stationary for a few days also meant that I could get a couple of nagging jobs out of the way – like getting the new name lettering fixed on the sides of the boat:

São Martinho do Porto

A beautiful natural bay that has been eroded out of the land after the sea breached a layer of tougher rock along the coast line. Here’s an aerial shot I found using Google:

We entered this bay with some caution as the charted depths in all but a few areas were too shallow for Amalia. On a rising tide we motored in and watched our depth gauge closely to find a good spot to drop the anchor. We had about a meter under our keel at low water (neap tides). If there had been waves washing into the bay we would have needed to move on – luckily for us the weather was very settled.

We stayed here for a couple of days over my birthday and were the only yacht in the bay. Lovely!

Peniche

We tried to call the marina on the VHF radio but didn’t get a response so headed for the bay and anchored just outside the harbour instead. The holding was excellent in a sand and clay bottom, which was a good thing as there were very strong offshore gusts in the afternoon and into the night.

The beach was busy with tourists and it looked like a nice place to visit. We decided to eat on the boat that evening though and headed off early the following morning towards Lisbon.

Lisbon (Oeiras & Cascais)

There are many harbours and marinas in Lisbon, we decided (for no particular reason) to bypass the marina at Cascais and stop at Oeiras.

Helena’s sister is based in Lisbon, and once again we were treated to some good old fashioned Portuguese hospitality. She took us on a tour of Sintra, a beautiful and historic area just outside of Lisbon, that we’d recommend to anyone visiting this part of the world.

After a couple of days in Oeiras, we backtracked to Cascais to meet up with friends from England who had managed to catch up with us from the Channel Islands in just five days! Quite a journey for them. We anchored there for the night and joined up with them and Helena’s sister for some great seafood in a restaurant that shall remain a closely guarded secret (it’s that good!).

Sines

Well what can I say about Sines that won’t get me killed by the locals? In fact what can I say about Sines that hasn’t already been said by the world’s leading geneticists on the effects of inbreeding?

It’s a bit of an odd place. For example, we attended the dullest candlelight procession in history yesterday. From what we can gather, it was intended to celebrate the saint that watches over the local fishing fleet. Sadly though it was more reminiscent of the final scene from The Wicker Man only this time enacted by the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Oh, look at their gloomy faces:

OK, I’m begin a bit too harsh, it’s not all that bad.

Sines is ideally situated as a stop over before rounding Cape St Vincent and heading on to the Algarve. We’ve found good places to eat: the coffee shop by the fort serves great cakes, and O Castello just across the street is the place to go for an evening meal (the black pig pork chops are amazing). And although the marina is a short hike into town, it overlooks a nice clean beach. Did I mention it has a decent internet connection too?

It’s been a tricky few weeks working our way along the Portuguese west coast. There have been a few days with good sailing conditions and some wonderful destinations, but on the whole we’ve been motoring a lot more than we’d have liked, dodging gazillions of poorly marked lobster pots along the way.

We’ve grown to love our radar, and have relied on it to get us through the dense summer fog banks, made all the more interesting by the crazy fishing boats who don’t bother with automatic identification systems (AIS), and just motor around without a care in the world, not even sounding a horn to announce their presence.

To help, we’ve made good use of MARPA (Mini Automatic Radar Plotting Aid) to monitor their whereabouts:

The red triangles are dangerous targets which, once they’ve been manually identified, are automatically tracked by the radar which sounds an alarm if they get too close.

Here’s Helena adding targets while we both keep an eye out for anything we may have missed with the radar, like the lobster pot on our port side:

Even when we get close, and know that there’s a boat out there, it’s a relief when it is finally spotted and we know we’ve passed it safely. Can you see the fishing boat in this photo?

Well that’s my whinging done – in my next post I’ll be a bit more upbeat I promise and will describe some of the lovely places we’ve found along this stretch of coast.